The Ministry of Health has announced the ban on feeding bottles from May 28.
This comes after Parliament recently passed into law the Breast Milk Supplements (BMS) Regulation and Control Act of 2012 that listed the bottles used for feeding infants as designated products, to mean items that are within the scope of regulation by the law.
While addressing delegates at the country’s first ever National Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition Symposium, organised by the ministry, Ms Esther Mogusu, the principal nutrition and dietetics officer at Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS), praised the government’s position and maintained that feeding bottles do more harm than good.
The reason they are regulated is whatever content is fed (to a baby) using bottles is not breast milk, but often will be a non-nutritious fluid.
The teats from which the child feeds on is made of silicon, which does not have the same texture as the breast nipple, and this causes what is known as nipple confusion, leading to refusal to breastfeed by the baby,” she told the Nation.
Ms Mogusu further explained that suckling from a bottle causes pressure to the inner ear and children will suffer recurrent ear inflammation.
The teat also causes misalignment of the jaw because of the fact that a